Hacked or not, user transactions vanish from IRCTC website

Many users have reported that the transaction history, which can be
opened from the "My Transaction" tab on the IRCTC website, has suddenly
gone missing.

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Manish Sain

New Delhi

May 13, 2016

UPDATED: May 13, 2016 13:49 IST

Earlier last week there were reports of possible hack at IRCTC website, something that was denied by government officials. But it looks like there is indeed something amiss with IRCTC website. Some users have found that their transaction details have vanished from the site and they can no longer access the previous travel records.

Many users have reported that the transaction history, which can be opened from the "My Transaction" tab on the IRCTC website, has suddenly gone missing. All the options inside the My Transaction tab, like booked ticket history, last transaction detail and ticket refund history, show "No records found" message.

Earlier, it was alleged that cyber criminals had stolen the user data, and credentials of over 1 crore users were available in the market at a price of Rs 15,000. While the Maharashtra government had confirmed the hack, the Ministry of Railways had said there was no data breach.

Although not all users are facing the issue related to vanished transaction details.

"The site is not showing any details from the tab, but it shows the latest booked ticket if I open the Booked Ticket History (Old and Mobile App) from the homepage. Although it takes me to the old IRCTC website, and even there it shows only the latest booked ticket," says Ankita Verma Mehta, an IRCTC user.

The panel for quick booking and cancelling tickets, which appears on the homepage, shows the required information only when a user clicks on the Booked Ticket History. The other options show "No records found" message.

It is possible that this is just a temporary, albeit fairly serious, glitch. Or it could be connected to the alleged hacking and data breach. It is also possible that after the reports of the hacking, the IRCTC is trying to make changes to its website or is possibly digging into its systems to find out what went wrong. That could be the reason behind the glitch.

Although the worst scenario could be that the alleged hackers are still inside the IRCTC system and they are possibly breaking a thing or two on the website.

The Ministry of Railways had earlier denied there was any data breach or hacking on the IRCTC website. It has said that the Railways constituted a committee comprising cyber experts and vigilance officials from IRCTC and Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) on May 3 to check the possible theft of data and found no such case.